


if I wasn't so gone completely this would feel like pain

by darklanguages



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Pre-Overwatch, Sibling Incest, chemical castration, lol what is punctuation let's call it Style, the dove isn't dead but it's barely fluttering so eat at own risk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-11
Updated: 2019-09-11
Packaged: 2020-10-14 08:13:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20597555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darklanguages/pseuds/darklanguages
Summary: Control can only stretch so far before breaking.Or snapping.





	if I wasn't so gone completely this would feel like pain

Genji’s first mistake, of course, is telling his father. 

He wakes up feeling strangely satisfied - like he just had a wonderful dream but now can’t recall a bit of it. Genji rolls over on his futon and frowns. The pants of his jinbei are wet and sticky, clinging to his front. He gets up silently, changing into clean clothes and stuffing the soiled ones at the bottom of his hamper. 

There’s a strange sense of shame that Genji feels, that he’s confused by. That evening he waits until his father is several cups in, until he’s at his most agreeable. Genji knows that he has to tell, otherwise the maids will say something and that would be even worse.

Hmph, his father says once he’s done, and pours himself another drink. And then: aren’t you precocious.

He asks Genji if he knows what happened. Genji shakes his head, still red and confused from his stuttered explanation. It’s the first step, his father says with his chin resting heavy on one hand, to becoming a man. 

Genji cocks his head in confusion. How, he asks.

Sojiro looks down at his second born, the one who is not heir, the one who is there merely for reassurance that his line will continue. Would you like to know, little sparrow? he asks quietly, firmly.

At Genji’s hesitant nod, a sword-calloused hand tugs at the obi knot of Sojiro’s kimono.

It’s convenient that Genji is already on his knees.

-x-x-x-x-x-

The next day Genji is called by his father’s physician. The elderly man gives no explanation, just gestures for Genji to tug down his pants and turn around. The injection burns, starting as an insect sting in his left buttock and spreading until everything is like embers under his skin. The physician tells him not to train that day, and sends him out with a small bandage and an absent ruffle of his hair. Genji goes back to bed and sleeps.

Life goes on, in the Shimada household. Training, learning, etiquette, clan business. 

And every month, a little pinprick.

He never again wakes up with sticky pants, though, so perhaps the tradeoff is worth it.

Hanzo gives Genji a curious look after he takes a day off of training the second month of the shots, makes a snide comment in front of their instructors the third. He stops by Genji’s rooms later that night with head bowed, gives a soft-voiced apology. Genji accepts it with confused grace and watches as Hanzo limps his way out.

Genji and Hanzo are brothers. They are more than brothers, they are less than brothers. They are not allowed outside of the castle walls except on clan business and none of their father’s men are permitted to have children. Genji reads books, sees the word ‘friend’. He doesn’t know what it means, not really. Cannot apply it to anyone but Hanzo - for Hanzo is all he has. 

They were close, as children. Playing, giggling, spending the nights flopped out in each others’ beds like tired puppies as often as not. Sojiro put a stop to it when Hanzo reached the age of thirteen and he was brought into the war room to attend clan business for the first time. Or at least, Genji thinks it was Sojiro. He just knows that first Hanzo spiralled into himself, until he was solid, concentrated. Then he unfolded like badly done origami, the creases still visible. 

The joy was gone, then. No more giggling, now Genji was gently pushed out of bed with a frown and statement that they had training in the morning. 

If Genji had been allowed to stay - if they were still close like they had been - if they - if he - then perhaps Genji could have talked to Hanzo instead of his father and his life would have been so very, very different.

-x-x-x-x-x-

Genji is brought into the business later than Hanzo, the privileges of being the spare child. He’s fifteen - more experienced, more cynical, more brash than Hanzo years earlier. He watches as Hanzo moves smoothly behind Sojiro, a trained shadow. He watches the men report, which ones are deferential and which glance around the room even as their heads are bowed. He watches as one man tries to hold his head high as he reports failure. 

He watches as his father shakes the blood off the tip of his sword, as he steps around the spreading pools of red. Hanzo wordlessly takes the sword from Sojiro, pulls a silken cloth that Genji has never seen before out of his obi and begins cleaning it. 

Sojiro dismisses Genji with the rest of his men, although Hanzo remains behind, still polishing the sword. Genji notes the tense set of his father’s jaw, the whiteness of his knuckles. When he gets back to his rooms Genji showers, changes into clean clothes, and sinks into seiza to meditate and wait for the call that will likely come. Unsurprisingly, it does.

When he returns to his rooms hours later, Genji showers again. The bruises haven’t raised yet but the skin is tender, giving against the water pressure. He brushes his teeth until the sour taste is gone from the back of his throat, stares into the mirror until he doesn’t recognize the person in front of him.

He turns out the light and puts on his clothes for sleep in the dark so he doesn’t have to look at himself. Before he can let himself think, Genji slides his door open, glances up and down the hall, and nudges open the door across from him and slips inside. A dark figure sits up in bed. 

You can’t be here, Hanzo’s voice comes from out of the darkness. Genji ignores it, steps silently over until he can push back the covers on what was always his side of the futon. 

Genji -

Not tonight, anija, please. Please.

A moment of feeling like he’s tipping on a precipice, before Genji hears Hanzo sigh and feels him settle back down. Genji is curled in onto himself, a small comma marking the difference between boy, man. His forehead rests against where Hanzo’s neck turns to back, where the vertebrae sink below the surface. Black hair, darker even than the blackness of the room, brushes against Genji’s forehead in a curtain and he lets his mind clear and sink into sleep.

When morning breaks open, they have shifted. Warm breath is on Genji’s neck, tight arms around his waist. Something firm and familiar, although never before from Hanzo, nestled up against his back. Out of habit, out of training, Genji pushes his hips back and in. There’s a moment of reciprocation before Hanzo pulls back with a jerk. Genji, he says with scandal in his voice.

A pained hiss, as Hanzo’s hands brush bruises that have raised on sharp hipbones. Genji? Hanzo says again, this time with worry.

Genji gets up as easily as he can fake it, smoothing his shirt down with unexpectedly shaking hands. His name comes a third time from Hanzo’s lips as he walks to the door without looking back, crosses the hall into his own rooms without checking to see who might be around.

Stupid, stupid. 

All of it, all of them, but especially him.

Once more Genji stares at himself in the mirror. He looks away when all he can see is his father’s eyes, his brother’s jawline. His gaze falls upon his inkstick, stone and brush, carelessly shoved to the side after calligraphy the day before. He takes the brush, looks at it thoughtfully. 

It takes a few tries, hands shaking and eyes burning when his aim goes wrong. But eventually Genji looks in the mirror and sees someone else - someone with eyes standing out bold and unfamiliar against smudged liner, someone with lips accidentally bitten red with anxiety and determination.

Genji looks at himself - himself, for once - and wonders where he could get his hands on hair dye.

-x-x-x-x-x-

His fake ID has worked for years - not that anyone would say no to a Shimada anyways - but it’s still nice to use his own, shiny new card declaring him eighteen and legal. Genji isn’t sure what time it is as he stumbles his way through the walls of the castle. Far past midnight, but the birds haven’t started chirping yet. Even as he rebounds giddily off the stone walls, Genji is still silent - soft feet, quiet breaths. One doesn’t disturb the funereal hush of Shimada Castle.

There’s a light on in Genji’s room, not one that he left on. His bed is still made from this morning - tight, military corners. Some things Genji rebels against, some things are ingrained. There’s a gleam on the quilt, light shining off of something inviting. Genji pads over, curiosity steadying his feet. 

It’s a sword. Beautiful, painstaking work - lines of carbon where the steel has been folded over a thousand times waver their way gracefully down the blade. The handle is gorgeous, pebbled rayskin wrapped in silk so dark of a green it’s nearly black. The tsuba, though, the guard - 

The metal is delicately repousséd into two sparrows with wings outstretched, feathers weaving into one another at the edges of the oval. It’s beautiful, echoing the tattoo that has been struck into Genji’s skin over the past week and now twists its way down his arm in itchy lines. Something in his chest burns and catches. 

The sword and its meaning and functionality say his father. But the details of the handle and the tsuba - 

I hope you like it, a quiet voice comes from the open door. Soft footsteps and there’s warmth and the familiar smell of eucalyptus at Genji’s back. He turns, looks at Hanzo, smiles. Thank you, he says.

Hanzo’s eyebrows draw together, lower a bit. He reaches up and traces a thumb over Genji’s cheekbone, below his eye. How can you even see anything like that, he murmurs. Genji hasn’t looked in a mirror lately but he knows what went up his nose and is sure his eyes are black and wide as pits right now. 

I can see what’s important, Genji says softly in reply, and leans slightly into Hanzo’s hand. Hanzo’s air visibly catches, his throat working for a second.

There are - moments, sometimes. Where Genji knows that he should, that he _ wants _ to be feeling something, but he’s just...not there. It happens in the club sometimes, when the air is so thick that he can taste the emotions on it, but the flavor is unfamiliar. It’s stronger, worse perhaps, when he’s close to Hanzo. When his brother shies away from him in a way that Genji doesn’t understand, that he gets upset by.

The hand jerks away from his face. Is it a joke to you? Hanzo hisses. Or are you really that high? There’s color staining his sharp cheekbones and his eyes are flashing with anger and hurt and Genji doesn’t understand _ why. _

I - I just… Genji can’t find the words. Thank you? he tries.

Hanzo is across the room now, looking weary. Happy birthday, brother. It’s said with something akin to sadness, to fatigue.

No matter how Genji wraps his arms around himself that night, his bed stays cold. 

-x-x-x-x-x-

There’s a pretty boy with wide bright eyes and long inky hair on Genji’s lap. He’s been feeding Genji sips from a bottle whose level never seems to fall, even as Genji’s eyelids droop. The boy sets the bottle aside, wraps sake-cool fingers around the back of Genji’s neck. Genji lets him kiss up and down his throat, lets him suck a light mark just under his jaw. Lets him drink kisses from Genji’s mouth that are talented but emotionless. 

The boy slides a hand down, frowns when he finds nothing to grip. Too much to drink? he asks with an awkward laugh, aware he’s been the one supplying the alcohol.

No, Genji says easily. I just don’t do that. He gives a wide, practised smile and slides his hand up the boy’s thigh. I do this, though, he murmurs, the words lost against the soft moan that his fingers draw forth.

Genji isn’t a fool. He figured it out once he started sneaking out of the protective stone womb of the castle, spoke to people who were not under control of the Shimadas. He heard them talking of morning wood, of getting laid, of ill-timed bodily reactions and the embarrassment that would inevitably follow. He then connected it to the injections when his father’s elderly physician died and there was a confusing month full of vetting new candidates.

His monthly appointment fell by the wayside, and he woke near the end of the month with a tent in his pants and a fear of his body doing _ things _ without his permission.

It was almost a relief the next month to get the familiar burn through his muscles that meant he would no longer have confusing and exciting dreams. No longer lock himself into training, staying out of the clubs for fear of what he might do. 

No longer dashing into side halls to avoid his brother, for without the shots he feels things that he knows are wrong wrong wrong for someone you are related to.

An outsider might look at Genji and see a privileged manboy in an adolescence extended into his twenties, rebelling against his heritage and spurning a lifetime of discipline for constant debauchery.

There’s a grain of truth to that, but far less than one might think. For all that he hates his family, Genji is a Shimada. He’s been through the clan training, he’s killed on behalf of his family because if he didn’t he would die himself. He knows what’s at stake. And so debauchery, yes - but at its heart Genji is still a master of control. He drinks as much as he does because he experimented to figure out exactly how much he could handle before losing control of his tongue, before blackout. His drugs are pure, only from dealers he trusts, and he stops once his brain is numbed enough to forget who he is.

Genji almost enjoys his command over his body. How despite everything he is not subject to baser lusts like everyone that swirls around him when he is out on the town. 

It’s not a perfect system, he muses as he zips up the pretty boy’s pants and wipes his hand on the shirt of the passed-out man next to him. But it works for him. Lets Genji forget who he is for bits and pieces at a time, but still lets him come back to himself. The boy sucks more marks into Genji’s neck - soft, delicate little things that he barely feels but the boy seems proud of. By the time Genji’s in the towncar on the way home, he’s already forgotten they’re there.

Dinner in the Shimada household is a requirement. It’s never the most comfortable of affairs, but the family’s cooks are decent and the time tends to be taken up by Sojiro and Hanzo discussing clan business. Today, however, it’s a silent, cheerless affair. Hanzo exchanges a glance with Genji, a lifetime spent together allowing them to have a full conversation with just a few looks.

Neither man knows what happened, but they’re both aware the tempest is developing.

Hanzo leaves, off to some meeting or other. Genji is absently picking at the last few grains of rice in his bowl when a tablet clatters to the table in front of him. He looks up at his father, who is glaring down at him - or at his neck? - then back down to the screen. It’s an article with an image of Genji from the night before - mouth open as the pretty boy placed a tab of something or other on his tongue, hand half-hidden in the open V of the boy’s pants. 

If you have the energy for that, then obviously you are not given enough to do, Sojiro states.

Genji looks up into his father’s cold, merciless eyes, and there’s a hole inside him where fear should reside. 

Later that night Genji is hunched over the chair at his desk, eyes blankly fixed on his tablet playing some mindless children’s show. It hurts too much to try and get down low enough to get onto the futon, so he just rests there, stiffening limbs wrapped around himself as much as he’s able. 

There’s a perfunctory knock at his door before it slides open. Hanzo is talking about the meeting he went to, about how they are going through negotiations with a neighboring clan and Genji will be expected to be part of the retinue for a party in a few weeks’ time -

Hanzo cuts himself off, as he looks at Genji.

What happened? A statement as much as a question. Soft, deadly.

What do you think, Genji mumbles through swollen lips, and he bites back a sound as Hanzo takes his chin in a gentle hand to turn it up towards him. Hanzo’s eyes are narrow and dark and furious even as his fingers are delicate, sliding down to fit into the marks spanning Genji’s throat.

Why.

Genji makes a noise, something that no one could call a laugh. You think he needs a reason? He breathes carefully as Hanzo helps him to his feet, wraps a steadying hand around his waist as he slowly guides Genji to the bathroom. You get it from him too, he says, squinting as Hanzo turns the bathroom light on then hurriedly dims it.

Not like this, Hanzo says quietly, as he painstakingly unwraps Genji’s top. He goes silent, not even breathing as he looks over the marks on Genji’s body. The wood of the bathroom counter creaks under Hanzo’s hand as he sees the blood on the seat of Genji’s pants. 

Not like this, he says nearly soundlessly on an exhale.

Genji blanks out for a bit, comes to in what he thinks is a haze, until he realizes it’s steam from the shower. He’s naked - Hanzo is as well although it’s barely in him to even notice. Hanzo gets him into the shower, leans Genji against him as he washes the various fluids away. His touch is firm, and even though sparks of pain occasionally shoot through Genji’s limbs, the grounding is what he needs right now. 

Hanzo turns him around to wash his hair. Genji is unsteady on his feet, lets himself fall back a bit because he knows Hanzo will catch him. There are warm wet hands on his shoulder, and something else that brushes against the small of his back. Oh. 

Sorry, Hanzo says gruffly, as he pushes Genji forward just far enough and starts to work shampoo into his hair. 

‘Sokay, Genji says tiredly as the suds rinse out, as he lets Hanzo turn him back around. There’s a wet washcloth dabbing around his eyes to get the liner off, but Genji doesn’t miss Hanzo’s glance down.

You’re...you’re not.

I can’t, Genji says. Truthfully, oh so truthfully. There are things he cannot do, even for the person he might want most in the world.

Oh, Hanzo says softly, then Oh, again. There’s a pause as Hanzo gently wipes the last of the lipgloss and blood and white crust from around Genji’s lips and then holds his chin.

What?

I never see you like this anymore, Hanzo says, without the makeup. Hanzo’s eyes, the same as Genji’s own without their protective coating, look at his face like it’s something he’s trying to learn anew.

We all have our armor. 

Mmm. Hanzo turns the shower off, guides Genji out. Now that he’s loose and warm, he’s so exhausted he can barely stand. He remembers little of Hanzo drying him off, of brushing out his hair, of dressing him in too-big clothing and tucking him into Hanzo’s own bed.

Despite the pain, it’s the best night of sleep Genji’s had in years.

-x-x-x-x-x-

The next morning there are familiar arms wrapped around him, the pressure blessedly keeping the pain of bruised ribs at bay. There are lips surrounded by soft hair pressed to the skin of Genji’s shoulder where the overlarge shirt - Hanzo’s shirt, something in him says with strange smugness - has slipped down, deep drowsy breaths warm down his spine. 

Genji - Genji _ feels _ this, far more than any of the more blatantly sexual kisses of the boy from days ago. This is chaste - well, nearly, Genji realizes as he feels a damp spot against his hip - embrace, and more than anything else in his life it’s made him realize there’s something missing in him. 

Something wrong.

It would be fine if he had never felt anything - he knows people like that who are perfectly happy. But this is something that he knows was taken away, before he could understand what any of it meant.

He shifts a bit off of a bruise on his hip, inadvertently pressing back into Hanzo. In the warmth and dampness against his shoulder, Genji hears - feels, more than anything - a noise that he’s never heard out of Hanzo before. Something soft, something intimate. Something he wants to hear again. Genji moves back again, purposefully now. Reaches back to wrap a hand around Hanzo’s thigh so he can’t get away this time.

He can feel Hanzo wake up, calculate everything about the situation with that rapidfire brain of his. Genji will light incense at every shrine he passes from now on because thank all the gods and little fishes, Hanzo trails his lips up Genji’s neck and pushes back into Genji. It’s...good, so very good even though it’s still not enough. Not what it should be.

It’s just curious, slow movements in the early light of false dawn. Soft breaths, the quiet rustle of fabric. The press of hands to bodies that don’t know each other as adults, haven’t been this close since childhood. It’s good until there’s a pause, it’s good until Hanzo’s hand slips languorously around a swollen hip, smooths against the front of Genji’s pants and stops.

You don’t want this. It’s only a lifetime of familiarity that lets Genji hear the hurt buried underneath the even toned words.

I do. I _ do, _ Hanzo.

Fingers, nearly cruel against traitorously soft flesh. Really, now.

Tightness in Genji’s chest that has nothing to do with his injuries. I told you. I can’t.

Sure.

I’m not - Hanzo, I _ can’t_. Not ever.

Stillness from hand and body, from breathing as Hanzo processes. Never?

A long exhale, as Genji gives up a burden he never realized he carried. No.

Were you - were you born…?

No.

Then how?

A chuckle that tears out of Genji’s chest like pain. Who do you think, anija? 

Another stillness, but this time heavy like the yellow air of a gathering storm. It lasts for the space of half a minute, until Hanzo untangles himself and gets up. Genji carefully rolls on his back as he watches his brother move around his room, gather his yukata from his closet and get dressed quickly and precisely.

It’s early, where are you off to? Genji doesn’t like the stiff set of Hanzo’s back.

I have things to do today.

Hanzo. _ Hanzo, _ he says again when there’s no reaction the first time. He turns, finally, looking at Genji with a blank face. Just...don’t do anything rash.

The barest hint of a smile. Come now, brother. When do I ever do anything rash?

He’s gone in a whisper of fabric, the door smoothly sliding shut behind him. Genji falls back into Hanzo’s bed, wincing as his sore neck is jarred. Anyone else would believe Hanzo.

Anyone but Genji, who remembers his brother before their father fit his hard fingers between their ribs and pulled them apart. Who remembers Hanzo when he had a toy taken away from him, who remembers how that fast mind of his could turn cold and vindictive and vicious.

Genji wants to care, but he’s too sore and exhausted. He buries his face in a pillow that smells like Hanzo and goes back to sleep.

-x-x-x-x-x-

Late in the evening, Genji is bent over the table in the physician’s small office. The antiseptic air is cool on his bared backside, and he can hear the soft clink of a fingernail flicking against a syringe to get the bubbles out. 

_ What if I didn’t? _ crosses through Genji’s mind, just like it does every month. The thought normally disappears with an image of his father intruding in, but now - even with his body aching and burning - he can’t stop the echoes of _ what if, what if, what if _that sound in Hanzo’s voice.

The quiet atmosphere is shattered by the door slamming open. What are you - ! the physician exclaims, only to cut himself off with a murmured Apologies, Shimada-san. Genji turns to see Hanzo in the doorway, a thundercloud of triumphant anger and blood. He’s - hurt. Badly. An arm dangles at a bad angle, he’s favoring his left leg. He puts a glass down on the table - a cup stolen from the kitchens, full of what looks like milk. There’s something at the bottom that knocks against the side, irregularly shaped and white.

Go wake the dentist up, Hanzo says and Genji can see a black hole where one of his canines should be. He seems to suddenly notice Genji is there, notice his pants are half pulled down. His eyes - eye, rather, the other is swollen shut - flick over to the doctor, the syringe he’s holding. A step, and Hanzo snatches it out of his hands.

He wheels around to turn to Genji. Still? After we - after everything, you would still let him?

It’s _ him, _ Genji says painfully, desperately, jerking his head up to show the bruises that stand out on his throat like accusations. There’s a thousand things Genji will rebel against and one that he won’t. 

Hanzo grabs the syringe, crushes the glass between battered fingers. It’s hard to tell what blood was there before and what’s caused by the new cuts, but Genji can’t take his eyes off of the clear liquid dripping off onto the floor. _ It’s yellow, _ he thinks to himself absurdly. _ I didn’t know that. _ He’d never been brave enough to turn around and watch the injections, not once in a decade and a half.

The doctor has fled, it’s now just two brothers and blood and a lifetime’s worth of problems dripping onto the floor. 

Genji braces Hanzo, shoves his shoulder back into place. Calls up Doctor Arai, who says to keep the tooth in the milk, rinse with salt water, and he’ll be by in the morning. Genji cleans Hanzo up much as Hanzo had done for him.

Hanzo’s injuries are loud, brash. Open cuts and vulgar wounds. Genji’s are quiet, hidden. Oddly enough it’s Hanzo’s that are more easily treated - rinse, tape, wrap. Again, again. 

Soon it’s just clean white gauze and exhaustion, brothers leaning against each other. Hanzo fits his hand against the side of Genji’s face, taped fingers dragging slightly against his hair. It’s a comfortable position, not the fingers around the throat or buried in the hair that Sojiro would do, nor the nervous butterfly touches of the club boys who don’t know how to deal with someone who doesn’t give the usual signals. Just broad calloused fingers and palm, simple steady strength.

It’s as easy as anything to let the hand turn Genji’s head, to lean into the touch and then further into Hanzo’s lips. Hanzo’s mouth is like coming home, wet and warm and backed by the tang of blood. 

Far too short of a time later Hanzo pulls back with a wince, hand going to where his missing tooth is. This is...not the time nor place, he says reluctantly.

Genji nods, and it’s okay because Hanzo isn’t pulling away and his breath is a warm comfort against the side of Genji’s face. They lean against each other to walk slowly back to where their rooms are. Genji knows he should care about the doctor and what he might say, but he’s just too exhausted right now. By mutual unspoken agreement they go to Genji’s rooms. They’re smaller, warmer than Hanzo’s. What they need now is comfort.

A soft bed, a solid presence at his back, and Genji is asleep in minutes. 

-x-x-x-x-x-

There’s a week of grace.

It’s a week of training and clan business during the day, healing and easy touches and quiet words at night. The charger for Hanzo’s tablet now sits at the right side of Genji’s futon, his razors and soap next to Genji’s makeup in the bathroom. Their father is in Korea, some kind of negotiation. Genji doesn’t know what happened that night between him and Hanzo, doesn’t want to know. It wasn’t enough to keep Sojiro from his duties, not that anything would. He attended a meeting with a feuding family the morning of their mother’s funeral.

Genji is snoring lightly into Hanzo’s chest when the door to his room slams wide. Both men are up and in fighting stances before their eyes are truly open - some things are trained in deeply.

I was told of such nonsense, Sojiro says, words slithering out between clenched teeth. From the doctors, from the dojo masters. From the guards. And yet I still hoped that they were mistaken. That this...depravity was simply a misreading. Apparently I was wrong.

You dare call anything depravity, after what you have done? Hanzo hisses, stepping forward to spit his words more directly. Is there nothing, no one that you will not use for your own ends?

I do what I do to keep our clan alive, to keep us powerful! Sojiro’s voice is a roar, and Hanzo’s rises to match it. 

Genji stops listening. He’s the third point of the triangle, back against his desk and caught between them. The weakest link, the last in the chain. The extra, the spare. Shouts fill the air, fill Genji’s head until there’s nothing left but noise and noise and noise and he has to make it stop make it all _ stop - _

There’s a soft thunk, a sharp inhale from Hanzo, and then the only sound is Genji’s harsh breathing and the dripping of blood from the end of his blade onto hardwood. The sparrows are dashed with gore, the carbon lines masked by a wash of red. Genji is staring into thin air, but Hanzo can’t tear his eyes away from the now headless body in front of them that seconds ago was their father. 

Genji. _ Genji. _ He can see white all around Hanzo’s eyes. We need to, need to find guards we can trust. Cover up - 

No.

What?

No. Clans respect power. Sojiro Shimada was not strong enough to hold it, and so now it has passed on. The clan is ours, now. Welcome to being clan leader, brother.

Hanzo looks half confused, half still shocked. How do you -

What, you think all that clubbing is nothing but drugs and dancing? Father would let me out because I came back with all of the information that people let slip while drunk. I’ve a better grasp on local politics than you, Hanzo.

Genji turns away, strips off his shirt to wipe the blood clean from the blade. His hands are steady, but there’s a shaking deep in his chest. Like the core of him is trembling with the immensity of what he’s done. He stumbles a few steps away to the futon, sinks down onto it on his knees, sword still held loosely in one hand. 

Hanzo is in front of him somehow, eyes calmer but worried, a hand pressed to Genji’s chest and the rapidly beating heart beneath. Genji - 

He’s cut off by Genji crashing into him, knocking him onto his back with an inelegant squawk. Genji falls down on top of Hanzo, mouths slamming together hard enough to draw blood. The situation is too much - while Hanzo would normally calm Genji down, this time he gives back as good as he gets, hands scrabbling at Genji’s bare back. Seams rip as they lose clothing, needing to ground each other with skin against skin.

Genji sees Hanzo in snapshots - a ridge of muscle rising up and flexing, tendons standing out against a hand wrapped around Genji’s own arm, a red-kissed cock rising proud from trimmed black hair. It’s this last that Genji focuses on, that he wraps a hand around. He’s holding Hanzo down with nothing but that, a hand in his hair, and two lifetimes’ worth of emotional crescendo. 

Anija please - _ please _… Hanzo’s hand is scrabbling at the side of the futon, emerges holding a small bottle of lubricant and a few condoms. At Genji’s raised eyebrow, Hanzo refuses to blush or look away at his presumption. 

Someone had high hopes, Genji murmurs, and whatever Hanzo might have said in reply is lost in a soft noise as Genji strokes him slowly with a slicked hand. Hanzo is pliant below him, battle-hardened body writhing in sinuous lines on the smooth sheets. It should come as a surprise to see such a proud and defiant man so easily brought to heel under the hands of his younger brother, but it isn’t to Genji. He knows Hanzo, knows what he would give to Genji, would give up for Genji.

And Hanzo knows what Genji would give for him.

This isn’t something that he has too much experience with, Genji thinks as he slides fingers deep into Hanzo’s warmth, but it’s not like Hanzo’s body is unfamiliar to him. Just - in a different context, now. He watches in fascination as Hanzo falls apart beneath his wandering fingers, muscles twitching and sounds rising unbidden from his throat. Even pinned down as he is by the hand in his hair, Hanzo struggles upwards, mouth blindly searching until Genji leans down to meet his lips. 

Need more. Need you - Hanzo says, and Genji has never felt more hatred for his body more than in this moment.

Not yet, anija, he says quietly. It hasn’t worn off yet. His eyes flick around the room, settling on something that makes them light. Perhaps this could work, he murmurs, and reaches over the side of the bed. 

Genji’s never put a condom on anyone or anything before. It takes him a second to figure out, but he’s smoothing it down easily a moment later. Hanzo moans as Genji works the handle of his katana into him, pushing in the way Genji wishes his body could, inch by unforgiving inch. When the tsuba - _ that Hanzo designed and ordered just for me, _ Genji thinks inanely - is nestled up against soft skin, Genji leans down to take Hanzo into his mouth. Gripping the katana along the blunt top edge he pulls it out slowly as he sinks down, ordering himself mentally not to choke. 

He needs this to be good.

He needs to be good. For Hanzo. 

It’s a slow push and pull, until the trembling in Genji’s chest starts to shake itself loose. He compensates by tuning all his senses into Hanzo - the feel of him, the taste of him, the sounds that keep coming from reluctant lips. Genji pulls back slightly and opens his eyes to glance up, and for just a moment it feels like the chemicals dampening his system have vanished, for seeing his brother straining and sweat-slicked in pleasure is like a punch in the chest. 

Genji fucks the weapon that ended one empire and is beginning another into his brother’s body relentlessly, not stopping until Hanzo spills down his throat with a cry that echoes off the rafters. There’s a muted, sticky clatter as Genji pulls his sword free and drops it in the now tacky pool of blood. He presses his face to Hanzo’s stomach, and feels - 

Feels -

Feels like perhaps, for the first time in his life, Genji Shimada might be free. 

His face is damp with his father’s blood and his brother’s seed and the salt of his own tears, but there’s a lightness in his chest that he can’t quite explain. Genji knows that what follows is going to be arduous - despite his confident words, he just killed the leader of one of the most powerful clans in Japan. Despite a lifetime of hidden bruises and silk-covered razor words, he just killed his own father.

For now, though, there’s Hanzo’s hand stroking through his hair. For now, there’s the knowledge that the chemicals coursing through him will fade and fade until he’ll be able to fuck Hanzo with his own body someday. For now there are three Shimadas but only two beating hearts in this room, and that is as it should be.

Genji sobs silently into Hanzo’s chest, and would not be able to tell you with a sword to his neck whether they were tears of joy or fear.


End file.
